If you follow this journal, you know that October has been a long succession of disasters for Your Obedient Serpent. Many of them were car-related, and, of course, the climactic one, the destruction of my car on Halloween morning, was the proverbial bolt from the blue, the quintessential smite of angry divinity, if your metaphysics lean that way, or cosmic irony, if they lean in the other direction.

It's enough to prompt even the aggiest agnostic to wonder, "Why me? Who did I piss off?"

Today, on the phone with my mother, I mentioned this gag. Being no great fan of either Twitter nor Ms. Simpson, she found it uproarious -- but then stopped, and asked, "So, when did you do this?"

"September 15th", I answered.

"Aha!" she said, wise in the ways of Old Man Coyote. "That's when your trouble started. You took His name in vain."

My mother has a wonderful Ominous Prophecy Voice, and it has only improved with age.

I confess, the logic is inescapable. Indeed, at the time, I said, "I am so asking for trouble by doing this."

Friday the 13th seems the ideal time to Confess and Repent one's sins before the Trickster.

Coyote, forgive me! I have taken Your name in vain, and trespassed upon a Gag that was rightfully Yours! The forces of Cosmic Irony have weighed heavily upon me, and more heavily still upon my late, lamented Grape, who has suffered in my stead. I repent of my sin, and my hubris in attempting to leech your Yuks!

You know, when I first came into possession of that Little Purple Car, I asked the opinion of a former Aspire owner, who had rolled his on Interstate 5 a year or two before, and come out unscathed. He said, "They may not look like much, but they'll give their lives for you."

Todd, whom I've seen pretty recently, actually said I'm a lot less cynical than I used to be, hehe. You probably disagree because you mostly talk to me through LJ, which is an inherently cynical medium, I submit. I am a philosophical optimist! :)

I can't disagree entirely, of course, because I'm also not an idiot. I just find that exploding boxes are less funny when the character can't shake their head and be back to normal. Drop an anvil on Daffy Duck and it's slapstick. Drop a thousand pound bomb on a funeral and you've in the theater of the absurd . . . which is quite similar to slapstick, come to think of it.